Paradise can be a harsh mistress, but when she smiles favorably upon us there is nothing for it. Time to get outside!

glorious bluebird day with no winds to speak of

I was getting tired of the indoor workouts – continuous motion while going nowhere and still feeling stir crazy. All exercise is not created equal, you know. Kaweah won’t go near the treadmill (she’s scared of it), but she loves to go for a ski. We are both ardent champions of outdoor activity.

let’s go let’s go let’s go!

Jeremy and I finally grabbed a day at Vail too. No lines, no crowds, fresh falling snow, great conditions, and overpriced burgers. We skied the bumps, steeps, and trees. At the end of the day, my entire body was hurting, but in the best way possible.

overlooking vail valley

i biffed in the glades, but it was so pretty i had to take a picture

still on the ground, the view of the lovely snow and blue sucker holes in the sky

By the time we get home from a day on the big ski hills, we are pretty much ready to eat the kitchen counter. Being the planner that I am, I try to have something in the refrigerator that is easy to heat up and consume. Lately, this butternut squash pasta sauce has been a delightful change of pace from cream-based or tomato-based sauces.

I’ve been crushing on butternut squash for years, but only in the past couple of years have I started to prepare it at home. I find butternut squash ravioli irresistable, but I didn’t want to go to the trouble of making ravioli. I wondered if there might be a way to invert the dish, that is to make the filling the sauce? Sure enough, when I looked around on the interwebs, Elise and Garrett had done just that. I followed their lead with a few changes.

peeled, cored, and diced

toss with salt, pepper, olive oil

I roasted my squash a little differently – with olive oil rather than in standing water. I love the flavor of roasted butternut squash. The reason I diced it up was to increase the surface area of that crispy, chewy outer layer. Once that was in the oven, I sautéed the shallots

add shallots to the pan

cook until golden

When the squash was done, I dropped the pieces into my blender along with the shallots and a cup of water. Actually, I used 2 cups of water in total because my blender wasn’t budging without a lot more liquid. But eventually, it all did purée nicely.

roasted

purée in a blender or food processor

Once all of the chunks were gone, I poured the smooth purée into a saucepan and stirred in the Parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt, and Greek yogurt. You can use sour cream, but it upsets my stomach. I also went light on the salt because I prefer to sprinkle some salt over the pasta sauce when I serve it. Do what works best for you. Heat the sauce through, but don’t let it come to a boil. At the same time, you want to cook whatever pasta you plan to serve with the sauce.

stir in the remaining ingredients

fresh fettuccine

Sage and butternut squash team up nicely, so I figured I’d add sage as a garnish. Any excuse to fry some sage leaves in butter, an idea from my brilliant friend, Kell. Be sure to fry them until crisp, because the texture is half the fun. It only takes a minute or so and it adds volumes to the entire ensemble.

butter-fried sage leaves

Once everything is ready, I like to toss the pasta with a little bit of the sauce first. Then I dish it up and spoon more sauce on top. Next, sprinkle salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese over everything before garnishing with a few sage leaves. It’s creamy without feeling heavy and I love the sweetness of the butternut squash. The best part is that the sauce will store in the refrigerator for a few days and it makes for easy leftovers on those nights when you don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking and waiting around for dinner.

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a roasting pan, toss the butternut squash cubes, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper together until the squash is evenly coated. Roast the squash for 45 minutes, giving them a stir with a spatula every 15 minutes until the squash is fork-tender. Remove from oven and place the butternut squash in a blender or food processor. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small frying pan and sauté the shallots or onions until they start to brown. This takes a few minutes. Place the onions in the blender or food processor along with a cup of water. Add more water as needed – mine was super thick so I ended up using 2 cups of water. Purée the squash until smooth. Empty the contents into a medium saucepan and set on low heat. Stir in the Parmesan cheese, Greek yogurt (or sour cream), nutmeg, and salt to taste. You don’t want it to boil (and you don’t want the cheese to melt into a giant clump), just heat the sauce. Meanwhile, melt the unsalted butter in a small pan on high heat. When hot, place the fresh sage leaves in a single layer in the butter and fry. Turn them over after 30 seconds and continue to fry until crisp. Remove from pan. Serve the butternut squash sauce over any pasta (I like it with fettuccine – we had a pound of pasta) and sprinkle Parmesan, salt, and black pepper on top. Garnish with 3 fried sage leaves. Serves 4.

Learned a new term today, thank you. “Sucker hole.” Good word for those little teasers of blue that appear on grey days. Kind of like it appears to remind us of what we’re missing. And, understand you were lying on the snow when you photographed it, right? Funny how we have to be in a position like that to see something amazing.

My mouth is literally watering looking at your pictures! This recipe is amazing. I love butternut squash!! I would do this with gluten-free pasta, but other than that, this is a perfect dish for me!!!! =) Thank You!!

WOW! This is so good. I just made it and added a little extra yogurt to the sauce and we inhaled. I am thinking the leftover sauce would be good to mix in with macaroni and cheese. Double yum! Thanks so much.

Hi I can’t wait to try this recipe. I am so excited about it. Butternut Squash is one of my favorite veggies, Butternut Squash Raviolis are such a treat, but this recipe is awesome because TJ’s is no longer selling their yummie Butternut Squash Spaghetti Sauce :( at least not anywhere I have gone to recently. Thanks so much for this.

I just wanted to stop by and say that I made this last night and it was GREAT. I had made a squash puree to make some bread and was trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers…this was a great solution! The only change I’d make next time is maybe using a chicken broth to thin it rather than water, but overall I was really happy with how it came out! :)

[...] sauce on spaghetti and the side was sautéed Swiss chard. You can find the link to the sauce here. And the recipe for the Swiss chard is at the end of this blog. So check out the photos, decide [...]

Ok, this may seem like an elementary question but here goes: at what level of heat do you cook your shallots? Apparently I’m not very good at getting to the “golden” stage; it usually skips to the “charred edges” or just plain “burned” stage. I’ve seen recommendations from med to med-high to high heat, but nothing really confirmed. What is your preference, especially for this recipe? Thanks!

Jess – Ah, that’s a good question if you aren’t familiar with browning shallots. I start on high heat for the oil. I toss the shallots in and stir them around so they don’t burn. Reduce the heat if they start to burn, but keep stirring them about every minute or so. The key is to watch them. You’ll see when things go south and that is your cue to reduce the heat if necessary or give it a stir. And, it will depend on how strong your stovetop burner is and what kind of pan you are using. Good luck!

[…] is anyway. The fried sage leaf garnish is a nice touch (an idea from one of my favorite food blogs, use real butter), but I mostly added it because I had sage around. If you don’t, the risotto is still […]

Very strange flavor profile… IF I make it ever again, I’ll leave the yogurt out. The dairy covered up the flavor of the onion (shallots). The ratios of squash to to onion is way off. Much less squash is needed.